Thursday, February 26, 2009
[palestinian unity] post-apocalypse, methinks
Fat chance:Egypt urged all Palestinian factions on Thursday to work on ending their internal chasm in reconciliation talks aimed at pushing rivals Hamas and Fatah to form an interim unity government.
Distrust between the groups runs deep after a power struggle including Hamas' violent takeover of Gaza in 2007, leaving Fatah in charge of only the West Bank. Tensions escalated further after Israel's three-week offensive in Gaza, designed to stop Hamas rocket fire into southern Israel.
Hamas claimed the government of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas ran a Gaza spy ring that fed Israel information about Hamas targets during the offensive that ended January 18. Abbas' Fatah accused Hamas of killing and wounding dozens of Fatah activists under the cover of the war.
[forgiveness] powerful weapon in the right hands
‘The Tree of Forgiveness ’, 1882, by Edward Coley Burne-Jones. Wonder why artists are all coy about the male but are happy to show all the female? Just asking.Cherie wrote about forgiveness:
The ones listed are relevant to the comments on my previous post:
* Aids psychological healing through positive changes in affect
* Improves physical and mental health
* Restores a victim’s sense of personal power
Forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself. It is not something you do for someone. It is not complicated. It is simple. To sum up it takes a great deal of courage to forgive someone and move on.
I have two main ideas on file [not my own] to add to that:
1.
Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
2.
If someone hurts us, either that person never knows he’s hurt us or else he just goes away and leaves us to suffer. Where once we were going along happily, now someone has made us angry, depressed and seeking revenge.
This then makes us bitter.
Does this person pay for his crime against us? No way. Do we pay for his crime? Yes, every time, through loss of balance, loss of mood and loss of health. In the end, he wins and we lose. Only we should choose how we feel.
Forgiveness is the way to say: "Nobody is going to hurt me and control my feelings, even in his absence. I make the choice whether to be hurt or not. In the end, he is the unfortunate one, not me."
By rethinking the meaning of forgiveness, we can become emotionally freer, calmer and generally a more pleasant person. Power over oneself is the key to a calmer, more balanced life.
This last was a paraphrasing of Philip McGraw.
My view of forgiveness is more aggressive than Cherie's. It can be a powerful weapon and not only to harm but to rebuild yourself.
[systemic shistemic] here we go
For those who don't like to click:
The global systemic crisis will enter a fifth phase in the fourth quarter of 2009, a phase of global geopolitical dislocation.
A. Two major processes:
1. Disappearance of the financial base (Dollar & Debt) all over the world
2. Fragmentation of the interests of the global system’s big players and blocks
B. Two parallel sequences:
1. Quick disintegration of the current international system altogether
2. Strategic dislocation of big global players.
Anyone disagree out there?
The global systemic crisis will enter a fifth phase in the fourth quarter of 2009, a phase of global geopolitical dislocation.
A. Two major processes:
1. Disappearance of the financial base (Dollar & Debt) all over the world
2. Fragmentation of the interests of the global system’s big players and blocks
B. Two parallel sequences:
1. Quick disintegration of the current international system altogether
2. Strategic dislocation of big global players.
Anyone disagree out there?
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
[the existence of g-d] maglev trains and macintosh osx
This blog sees its purpose [given that it is sentient, a contestable claim] as tackling any topic, no matter how uncomfortable.
The antidote to that is your clicking finger.
An epithet I like to give to the phenomenon of Jesus of Nazareth is ‘the man who came to earth to make you feel uncomfortable’ and I’m really comfortable with making you feel uncomfortable on that.
Let me employ three really weird analogies – the Macintosh OSX, electricity and a train.
Two men go to a train station to take the Intercity. One gets on and makes the journey, the other is stuck at the station. Later, the second makes out, on the phone, that the train refused to take him and anyway, it probably wasn’t going to his destination.
The man who travelled says, ‘Well first you have to buy the ticket. Only then will you know or not know.’
You can extend that analogy to the lottery. Someone’s bemoaning the fact that nothing good seems to happen and he has no money. Why do some people win the lottery and he gets nothing? Same thing – first you have to buy the ticket.
In other words, you have to get off your butt, physically make a move and buy it.
Let me ask you one. ‘How do you know sex feels exquisite?’
There’s a man with a PC which has broken down and a man with a Mac. The first says there’s nothing special about a Mac – it’s just a bloody laptop, after all. The PC can do so much more than a Mac ever can. The second only wants a simple, reliable device, with an elegant operating system which is a joy to use on an hour-to-hour basis. He says the Mac does what it does and does it in luxury. No more, no less.
Someone says, ‘Prove there’s a G-d and a Christ.’ I say, ‘I can’t prove it.’ ‘Aha,’ the first leaps onto this answer, ‘there you are, you see – it doesn’t exist.’ Then he goes into a long diatribe about how he can ‘prove it doesn’t exist’, how the gospels were written after 70CE and how this superstition needs to be stamped out.
I look at him and think, ‘You should take a recording of yourself – why are you so passionate about this?’
A fellow blogger comes over, apoplectic and asks me why I need to invent a G-d when there are perfectly rational explanations. I say, ‘Yes, there are rational explanations and one of them is that He exists.’
‘No, no,’ he says, ‘rational, scientifically provable.’
‘Ah’ I say, ‘like global warming.’
If you were to ask me what electricity is, I can’t tell you. Well yes, I can parrot back to you about volts, amperes and Charlie but I don’t know what it actually is. I know it works but I couldn’t begin to tell you how.
Well yes, I can tell you how but not what it actually IS.
I do know, coming back to the train analogy, that I bought the ticket way back in the past and immediately life became like a Mac in a PC world – just a better way to do it, serenely arrogant bstd, as Adams would say. Personal things just fall into place, while the extrinsic things like no job and the constant worry of being on the street continue but the thing is, I know the direct correlation between when I am doing the right thing, fulfilling the contract, so to speak and when I’m off on my own tangent.
In the former, things really do click and there are enough anecdotes to fill a library. What’s more, the correlation is not seventy or eighty percent – it’s 100%. It always works, like a Mac [in the first few years anyway – you can only take the analogy of a piece of machinery a certain way].
For example, a cheque arrives or I meet a nice lady and have a good afternoon or something just appears out of nowhere. When I’m not doing the right thing, it’s just like everyone’s life – some ups, some downs, mainly downs.
It doesn’t give you actual things. You’re still going to die, you won’t be left a fortune by a rich uncle - it won’t give you anything material, you’ll still find yourself on the Titanic, the same as all the other passengers but it does give you the mechanism to cope and the most important one of all – it gives comfort. In your head, if you really have faith, you also have comfort. One follows from the other.
Why this elicits such anger from people, why the fire comes out of the nostrils of someone intent on saying you’re a bloody idiot if you believe that long-exploded guff – this is a mystery to me. I don’t get apoplectic over your beliefs.
Returning to the train, how do I know maglev works? Actually, I think it’s flawed; I think that if you’re relying on electrically induced magnetism and with the ease with which circuits can be broken, that at any time out there, the connection can be broken and the train hurtles into the valley.
You’d answer me, ‘Have you ever been on maglev train?’ ‘Well no.’ ‘Then stop talking through your a-se. Until you’ve bought a ticket and gone on one, how can you say? It works fine and there are many people who can testify to that.’
Now it’s my turn. I ask, ‘Do you believe that there are other planets with sentient life forms out there in some galaxy?’ You say, ‘Of course.’ I say, ‘Prove it.’ You say, ‘Well on the law of averages, there have to be.’ I ask, ‘Why are you so obsessed with inventing the existence of other life forms? There’s only us.’ You say, ‘That’s such a blinkered view.’
The antidote to that is your clicking finger.
An epithet I like to give to the phenomenon of Jesus of Nazareth is ‘the man who came to earth to make you feel uncomfortable’ and I’m really comfortable with making you feel uncomfortable on that.
Let me employ three really weird analogies – the Macintosh OSX, electricity and a train.
Two men go to a train station to take the Intercity. One gets on and makes the journey, the other is stuck at the station. Later, the second makes out, on the phone, that the train refused to take him and anyway, it probably wasn’t going to his destination.
The man who travelled says, ‘Well first you have to buy the ticket. Only then will you know or not know.’
You can extend that analogy to the lottery. Someone’s bemoaning the fact that nothing good seems to happen and he has no money. Why do some people win the lottery and he gets nothing? Same thing – first you have to buy the ticket.
In other words, you have to get off your butt, physically make a move and buy it.
Let me ask you one. ‘How do you know sex feels exquisite?’
There’s a man with a PC which has broken down and a man with a Mac. The first says there’s nothing special about a Mac – it’s just a bloody laptop, after all. The PC can do so much more than a Mac ever can. The second only wants a simple, reliable device, with an elegant operating system which is a joy to use on an hour-to-hour basis. He says the Mac does what it does and does it in luxury. No more, no less.
Someone says, ‘Prove there’s a G-d and a Christ.’ I say, ‘I can’t prove it.’ ‘Aha,’ the first leaps onto this answer, ‘there you are, you see – it doesn’t exist.’ Then he goes into a long diatribe about how he can ‘prove it doesn’t exist’, how the gospels were written after 70CE and how this superstition needs to be stamped out.
I look at him and think, ‘You should take a recording of yourself – why are you so passionate about this?’
A fellow blogger comes over, apoplectic and asks me why I need to invent a G-d when there are perfectly rational explanations. I say, ‘Yes, there are rational explanations and one of them is that He exists.’
‘No, no,’ he says, ‘rational, scientifically provable.’
‘Ah’ I say, ‘like global warming.’
If you were to ask me what electricity is, I can’t tell you. Well yes, I can parrot back to you about volts, amperes and Charlie but I don’t know what it actually is. I know it works but I couldn’t begin to tell you how.
Well yes, I can tell you how but not what it actually IS.
I do know, coming back to the train analogy, that I bought the ticket way back in the past and immediately life became like a Mac in a PC world – just a better way to do it, serenely arrogant bstd, as Adams would say. Personal things just fall into place, while the extrinsic things like no job and the constant worry of being on the street continue but the thing is, I know the direct correlation between when I am doing the right thing, fulfilling the contract, so to speak and when I’m off on my own tangent.
In the former, things really do click and there are enough anecdotes to fill a library. What’s more, the correlation is not seventy or eighty percent – it’s 100%. It always works, like a Mac [in the first few years anyway – you can only take the analogy of a piece of machinery a certain way].
For example, a cheque arrives or I meet a nice lady and have a good afternoon or something just appears out of nowhere. When I’m not doing the right thing, it’s just like everyone’s life – some ups, some downs, mainly downs.
It doesn’t give you actual things. You’re still going to die, you won’t be left a fortune by a rich uncle - it won’t give you anything material, you’ll still find yourself on the Titanic, the same as all the other passengers but it does give you the mechanism to cope and the most important one of all – it gives comfort. In your head, if you really have faith, you also have comfort. One follows from the other.
Why this elicits such anger from people, why the fire comes out of the nostrils of someone intent on saying you’re a bloody idiot if you believe that long-exploded guff – this is a mystery to me. I don’t get apoplectic over your beliefs.
Returning to the train, how do I know maglev works? Actually, I think it’s flawed; I think that if you’re relying on electrically induced magnetism and with the ease with which circuits can be broken, that at any time out there, the connection can be broken and the train hurtles into the valley.
You’d answer me, ‘Have you ever been on maglev train?’ ‘Well no.’ ‘Then stop talking through your a-se. Until you’ve bought a ticket and gone on one, how can you say? It works fine and there are many people who can testify to that.’
Now it’s my turn. I ask, ‘Do you believe that there are other planets with sentient life forms out there in some galaxy?’ You say, ‘Of course.’ I say, ‘Prove it.’ You say, ‘Well on the law of averages, there have to be.’ I ask, ‘Why are you so obsessed with inventing the existence of other life forms? There’s only us.’ You say, ‘That’s such a blinkered view.’
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